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Sunday, July 27, 2014

I don't know when it happened, but all of a sudden I know Spanish!

July 21, 2014

.

So I don't know if you're purposely
being ironic when you ask if I'm "warming up" to Izamal yet or not,
but yes I am getting used to it here. The church is still destroyed but we had
a family home evening with the whole ward Saturday night in the basketball
court (The only part of the chapel that wasn't destroyed) and it was way fun! The
ward is super cool. .

Umm well HP is still homesick and she talks about home A LOT which I understand
but its kinda hard to focus and its sorta making me homesick too. And I should
be a better trainer and focus us more on the work and stuff but we have way too
much fun telling stories about home and stuff. Yeah I know everything about all
her friends and family and everything. It’s a problem. We're working on it.
HP.. hmmm. she's not extraordinarily tall, but she is tallish for a gringa, and
so here she's like a giant. Huge contrast to HT who is tiny. Anyway so everyone
comments on that like "esta bien grandota su compañera!" [your companion sure is tall!] and she's
like.. ok... and courtesy laughs. Which I know ALL ABOUT. Whenever you don't know what someone is saying
(like 95% of the time) you just kinda laugh and smile. Hahah it’s pretty funny
and I know exactly how she feels.

Cool bug zapper
racket. we were pretty entertained with this one..

I don't know when it happened, but all of a
sudden I know Spanish! It’s weird to be
listening to someone who like mumbles or talks really fast and totally
understand what they're saying when before it literally sounded like gibberish.
And if you think about about it and listen, you shouldn't be able to understand
what they're saying, but then my Mexican superspanishpowers kick in and I'm
like YES I get it!!!! Actually there's something to be said about that, my Spanish
progression took a huge leap FIRST when HG left me and I was left in charge
(Sorta) of my first area, and then another huge leap when I had to train, and
again when I had to train someone who knows no Spanish. And now there is very
little that I don't understand. I really
think it has to do with this "Who the Lord calls, he qualifies"
thing. Literally, every time that I
noticed a difference in what I understood of Spanish, it was when I was put in
a leadership position. So that’s kinda
cool.

Ok so another thing about HP. We have this one investigator
who always says that HP looks like the virgin Maria.. she's always like
"you have the face of a little virgincita!" and she's like
"hahaha *courtesy laugh* yeahh..." but she's thinking thats super
weird, what exactly is the face of a virgin?

Oh hey! Yesterday we were eating in the house of this guy A-
he's this super old guy who is strangely super in shape and looks older than
his mother who is an old investigator of ours... but he's awesome and we love
him ‘cause he always wants to go with us on visits, and he walks around with us
with his sunglasses and his Sunday shirt and fancy jeans, and he has like this
saunter. It’s cool. So much swagger. In this old skinny Mexican guy. ANYWHO so
nobody in his family is a member, and it just so happened that when we went to
eat, his WHOLE huge family was there visiting, and a lot of them are deaf. I
went to shake the hand and kiss this one lady (I think she's A’s niece) and I'm
like "Buenas tardes!" and she points to her ear and shakes her head
so I know she can't hear. Then as we're eating I notice her in the other room
with this guy and this little girl all signing and I couldn't understand what
they were saying cause 1- I forgot almost all my sign language and 2- Mexican
sign language is way different than English. But then later she came into the
room to sign to this other lady something, and I kinda picked out a little bit,
so I asked her if she was talking about someone falling out of a tree and she
was like "Yeah! How'd you know?" and I explained that I knew ASL, but
it had been a long time. But then I started trying to sign, and I started
remembering some signs! I started signing to the lady how I took ASL in school
and she totally understood! And then she
told me that her son was coming later and he studies ASL so he knows the English
sign language! He came right as we were
about to leave with his cousin who is half deaf, and his dad who is all deaf. So anyway they all freak out and tell him to
try to sign to me, and so we're there in the middle of like 70 people all
watching us trying to sign to each other. It was really cool cause keep in
mind, there is not just one, but 2 language barriers between us right now. And
we're like kinda understanding each other!!!
But mine was really broken and he was signing really fast. But still! He was
telling us about how they live in Cancun but are staying here in a hotel and I
think he either wanted my phone number or to know if I had like a video phone
skype thing, and I just showed him our crappy brick phone and he was like oh
ok. Then he wanted to take a picture so we got a picture of me with all this
family who is deaf. It was wayy cool but kinda frustrating that I couldn't
remember more!

Deaf kids!!! Oh my
gosh coolest experience ever!!!!

In other news, we went on visits with this girl V in our
ward, and she has a car so her mom was like, "Oh you guys can take the car
cause V knows how to drive" so we're like sweet ok! And we're just making
small talk and HP asks V how old she is, and all casually she tells us she's 13..........
And HP thinks it’s a joke, cause she looks like she maybe could be 16 or
something, but she’s like no I'm serious! Her uncle is there with us too and
he says yeah its true she’s 13! And she is driving this car that we are in.
So I'm cool ‘cause things are just different here, so I say Oh what is the
driving age here? And they're like
"16" and we're like ummmm......? But her uncle says “ But V is a really good driver don't worry! She's been driving for like 2 years now!” And we're like what??? But actually it’s not
that surprising cause we see these kids that look like they're 12 driving
motorcycles around all the time, but it was just weird. And they say nothing
matters here cause it’s a pueblecito [small town] and if we were in Merida it would be a problem
but here no. Like if the police pulled
her over nothing would happen. So hey Miranda
come on over here and Dad can teach you how to drive! It'll be super great.

So cool story. Remember
how I told you that our house is super tiny? Well yeah also there is something
living in our wall. We'll be studying or planning or something and we'll hear
this scratching on the wall, that like goes all along the wall and into our
bathroom. And it’s LOUD! And at first we
thought it was maybe our neighbors cause they have kids I think and they're
right up close next to our house so maybe it was them. But then one day we're
leaving the house and HP flips out and is like "LOOK!!" and there’s
this HUGE iguana crawling into this hole in the side of our house. Sooo now we
know what the scratching is. And I'm just waiting for the day that this fat
lizard breaks through the wall and starts crawling around our room. That'll be an exciting day.

Adorable little kid
Fernando of this family that we eat with every Saturday. The Ku family. They
rock and their food is to DIE FOR. He's modeling some broken hipster glasses
that I found that morning.

So the sister training leaders came to work with us on Friday
and that was fun 'cause we got a lot of really good feedback and tips on how we
can do better and I feel like I learned a lot! But holy cow they intimidate me.
Hermana T is the señor comp and she's like the oldest hermana in the mission or
something and she's crazy strict and I was so afraid I was going to do something
wrong and she was going to scold me. And she only did once in the whole day so
that was successful. But Mexicans are crazy!! The whole day Hermana C (the other on, I've
probably talked about her before cause she was in my last zone) had her hair
down, and tights and Hma T had this long dress on, and her bangs all down on
her forehead, and they were both like fine… not even sweating. And HP and I are sitting here sweating
buckets, shortest sleeves allowable and hair all piled up on the top of our
head, and needing to carry around sweat rags the whole day. (pretty much
all the missionaries have to carry around sweat rags except for the Mexican
hermanas who are used to the heat. I always told myself that I wouldn't sink to
that level cause that’s gross but I finally broke down and bought one...) But whatever.

Ok that’s all the time I have for today! I wrote a lot! Send me pictures! Ok that's all- love you bye!!!